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Although officially the new 2011 NIV was not supposed to be released until December 21, I received word at 11PM on the 20th from Apple that my iBooks pre-order was available for download.

As most This Lamp readers know, the 2011 update to the New International Version was released at biblegateway.com on November 1, 2010. Although the printed copies will not be available until March, 2011, the updated translation will be available in ebook format beginning today.

As far as I can remember, this marks the first time a major translation has been made commercially available to mainstream ebook platforms before print copies are published. Beginning today, the 2011 NIV is available for all major ebook platforms including Amazon's Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook and Apple's iBooks app for the iPad.

Here are a few screenshots from the iBooks version—the first etext edition I've found available. Click on images to see a larger view.

NIV eBook "cover"

I've already found a "bug" in the etext. Note the location guide at the bottom of the screenshot. The entire Bible is in one long chapter, or more specifically, the preface.

UPDATED: The Kindle version is now available, too. Below are some shots from the Kindle app for the iPad (and no, this is not the first time I've bought the same eBook Bible for competing etext platforms; I like to compare layouts and usability).

Song of Solomon, ch. 4, for comparison with earlier shot of the same spread in the iBooks edition.

Basic text searching is possible in both Kindle (pictured here) and iBooks edition.

I've found a different kind of "bug" in the Kindle edition. Whenever I touch some poetic passages (not all, though), I see a "poetry" flag pop up. I can't imagine this is supposed to be there.

If I understood a tweet from Stephen Johnson correctly this morning, this is a Zondervan-sponsored app that contains the new NIV. I'm assuming, but don't know for certain that you could tie the contents of this package to your Olive Tree account and download the same titles to any of the BibleReader apps. That's how it worked with the HCSB Study Bible app, but I'm not certain just yet.

Drew said "very soon working on it"! That's the one I really want can't wait, but I bought the Kindle version now to satisfy my curiosity and to have one available on my iPad. Which by the way the YouVersion Bible app (iPad, iPhone, Android) also has the NIV 2011.

Rick, when I bought the HCSB Study Bible (OliveTree), I was also able to download the Study Notes to my regular OliveTree app, and vice versa, I can upload my various bible translations to the HCSB Study Bible app.

Does either eBook Bible contain the charts and diagrams that are included in the print version? I'm actually interested in the Apologetics Study Bible for Kindle but I don't know if that has the charts and diagrams either. The reason I ask is because I purchased the Bible Knowledge Commentary from Olive Tree unaware that it did not contain the charts and diagrams that the print version did. I was a little disappointed. Thanks for any replies.

I downloaded the ePub version for my wife's kobo and did not have much success with it on the device itself. It works very well in Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) on my PC though, so it wasn't a total loss. The ePub version that I got for the kobo seems to be heavily dependent on hyperlinks for navigation and access to the footnoted material. From the table of contents on the kobo I could access the heading for each book, but those links just took me to lists of hyperlinks to the book chapters and not the content itself. I am assuming they are hyperlinks anyway because that is how they behave in ADE. That I could find there was no way to access the actual content on the kobo other than to acess the preface from the table of contents and page through it until I arrived at Genesis. From there I could then read page by page, which though ok for reading the Bible straight through isn't really very useful for any other intended reading pattern. Not owning a Nook I don't know how the version for it runs, but hopefully better than it does for the kobo.

I hope this will be helpful to any considering purchasing it for the kobo. If someone else has it for the kobo and got it to work properly please post your findings as I don't want to misrepresent how it functions if mine was a unique experience.

Thank you again for this wonderful blog. I do enjoy reading it often, and I wanted to let you know that starting tomorrow YouVersion's Bible App for Android, iPad, iPhone/iPod touch is offering a FREE download of the new 2011 NIV text! The promotion will last for 400 hours, in honor of the 400th anniversary of the printing of the KJV. You can read more about it here:

On a side note, YouVersion's app is quickly becoming my favorite Bible reader of choice because, unlike Olive Tree (which I have been converted from), their content is free, along with being as intuitive and continuously developed as OTBR. It's a great source to use, although I still think OTBR is a deeper software app when it comes to using other eBooks with it, as well as dictionaries & concordances, YouVersion's app is easily synced with Facebook & twitter so I can publish my SS Lessons quickly and accessibly for my class. I would not have you be ignorant, brother! Keep up the good work.